If your website runs on WordPress, PilotPress is how you connect it to Ontraport. It's Ontraport's WordPress plugin, and it's available on Plus and above. In this lesson, you'll see what PilotPress does, how membership levels control what people see, and what the rest of this section covers.
First, a quick check. If you're starting fresh, Ontraport recommends Ontraport Membership Sites for most people. You build everything with Ontraport Pages, with no WordPress, plugins or hosting to manage. PilotPress is robust and flexible, but it takes more to learn and set up. Choose it if you're already committed to WordPress, or if you need something only PilotPress does, like syncing members with your WordPress users.
PilotPress does three main things. First, it adds the Ontraport tracking script to every page of your site, so Ontraport can track your contacts' visits.
Second, it lets you add your Ontraport forms and Ontraport-hosted videos right in the WordPress editor. In a Classic block, click Add Media, then choose Forms or Videos.
Third, it turns your site into a membership site, with pages that only logged-in members can see.
Membership levels control who sees what. You create them in Ontraport. Click your profile icon, then Administration, then Integrations, then WordPress Website, and add each level. You could set up tiers, like Gold, Silver and Bronze, or one level per course, like Course 1 and Course 2.
Then, in WordPress, each page has a PilotPress Options section. Check the levels that can see the page. A page can allow more than one level. Visitors without access are sent to a page you choose. And protected pages stay out of your navigation menus for non-members, unless you choose to show them.
You'll usually give levels automatically. For example, when someone buys your course, an automation uses the Give WordPress Membership Access action to add the Course 1 level. Then it emails them their username, password and login link.
A contact can hold more than one level. When someone's access should end, the Remove WordPress Membership Access action takes it away.
You can also drip content. After the welcome email, add a wait, then give the next level and send an email, and repeat. Each new level unlocks the next part of your course on a schedule you set.
Levels can also show or hide parts of a page, with PilotPress shortcodes. For example, you could show an upgrade offer to your Bronze and Silver members and hide it from Gold members. Shortcodes can also check tags, or whether a visitor is a known contact. The advanced features lesson covers them.
PilotPress also handles logins. You can add a login form to any page, and choose where customers and partners land after they log in.
In WordPress, go to Settings, then PilotPress, and you can turn on a customer center. There, members see their purchase and payment history, update their card, and change their login details on their own.
You can turn on a partner center there too, where your affiliates see their earnings and reports and get their promo tools and links. You'll need a partner program in Ontraport first.
WordPress and Ontraport talk to each other often. So PilotPress should be the only plugin on your site that handles membership or redirects.
So: PilotPress connects your WordPress site to Ontraport, adds tracking, forms and videos, and uses membership levels to control who sees each page. Next up: how to integrate PilotPress with your site.